1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electron emission device having a resistive layer and an electron emission display having the electron emission device.
2. Description of Related Art
Electron emission elements are arrayed on a first substrate to form a conventional electron emission device. The electron emission device is combined with a second substrate, on which a light emission unit having phosphor layers and an anode electrode is formed, to establish a conventional electron emission display.
In the electron emission device, a cathode electrode is electrically connected to electron emission regions to supply a current to the electron emission regions. When a drive voltage is applied to the cathode electrode, electrons are emitted from the electron emission regions by an electric field. Here, when the drive voltage applied to the cathode electrode is unstable and/or there is a voltage drop in the cathode electrode, there may be a voltage difference between the electron emission regions which are located at unit pixels. Then, since a discharge current of the electron emission regions may not be uniform, a light emission uniformity of the unit pixels may be deteriorated.
In order to solve the above problem, the number of electron emission regions at each of the unit pixels may be increased and/or a resistive layer may be formed between the cathode electrode and the electron emission regions to control an intensity of the discharge current.
Here, the cathode electrode includes first and second electrodes disposed on an identical plane but spaced apart from each other. The first and second electrodes are interconnected by the resistive layer. The electron emission regions are formed on the first electrode or the second electrode.
However, the first electrode has openings. Therefore, an effective width (i.e., an electrode width for contributing to a current flow in a unit pixel) of the first electrode is reduced, and thus a line resistance of the first electrode becomes greater than that of the second electrode.
Therefore, since the increased line resistance of the first electrode is not substantially compensated by the resistive layer, the ability of the resistive layer to effectively control light emission uniformity is deteriorated. As a result, in the conventional electron emission display, the light emission uniformity of the unit pixels is deteriorated along a length of the first electrode due to a voltage drop of (or in) the first electrode.